Semapa sells nine per cent stake in Cimpor

Portuguese cement company Semapa has said it has sold its entire nine per cent stake in rival Cimpor SA for EUR251m.

Semapa said that in Thursday’s market session it sold 8.77 per cent of its Cimpor stake, having sold 0.22 per cent in various market operations during the previous two months.

The buyer of the block wasn’t identified.

According to local news reports, Semapa booked a EUR40m gain from the stake sale, and that the buyer may have been Metalgest, a Portuguese investment fund that has recently bought into the construction sector.

Semapa has said in the past it was keen to sell down its Cimpor stake. While it gave no explanation for the timing of the sale, the company is tipped by sector-watchers as the best-placed candidate to acquire the government’s 30 per cent stake in pulp and papermaker Portucel SA (PTIAM.LB) in the current privatisation round, and may be trying to raise cash ahead of that process.